


To thine own self(ie) be true

by Snapshadow



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Explicit Language, F/F, Max is a mild pervert and no one can convince me otherwise, Mild Angst, Mild Smut, trash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-11 22:17:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7909693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snapshadow/pseuds/Snapshadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max Caulfield has unraveled time and now seems to be paying the price. Lost in a nightmare of warped realities, will she find a way out? Will she find ultimate relief in an unexpected place? </p>
<p>Set in Episode 5 of Max's nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To thine own self(ie) be true

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know or do the Fanfiction thing but was really surprised when I couldn't seem to find this pairing. Naturally, I felt compelled to do it myself. It's trash but it makes me giggle, do with it what you will. Oneshot thankfully...
> 
> Max's Point of View.

CHAPTER 5: Polarized, Max’s Nightmare. Max's Point of View.

I wasn’t sure if I could actually do it. I whined to Chloe about it for what seems like weeks now. Well, I did it. I broke time, I shattered something and now I’m lost drifting through a horrible dreamscape of fantasy and reality. Everything feels so real. I can smell the gunshots, the diesel from the train that almost hit Chloe. The musty mixture of wet cigarettes and pot of her truck. I’ve seen her die so many times. Watched helplessly as those wonderfully mischievous eyes go dim and lifeless.

Time jumped and skipped and flew backwards. I am helplessly catapulted between all the horrible events of the last week. I know I need to get out. The storm is still somewhere out there. I’m in a long dark hallway now after wandering through my school yet again. I bolt in a straight line dodging a dozen Mr. Jeffersons with flashlights, is that a Warren and Principal Wells too? I didn’t think my own mind could be darker than the last hellish weeks, but I’m now crouched behind a wrecked car as a couple Mr. Jefferson’s and a Nathan Prescott scream for me. 

I stumble and barely avoid getting seen by a demented version of my school principal and even the janitor. It’s so dark. The hellish void saps all the warmth of my body as I just want the nightmare to be over. Now Frank the drug dealer seethes for me. I can hear him, but he doesn’t seem to notice me as I hide behind some tires. 

Is that…Is that the lighthouse? I know that all the demented nightmares I created are still out for me, but I make a mad dash for the door. Thankfully I make it without being noticed and slam the door behind me. Everything goes dark until I hear some familiar mumbles.

Oh god, please no. I’m inside a snow globe watching Chloe’s dad make the same movements I’ve seen him repeat so many times. The same exact movements that will result in his death in a car crash. Please, Chloe already has so much to forgive me for. I can’t watch this again.

Suddenly I’m trapped back in the Dark Room. Chloe appears with Jefferson.

“She’s such a fucking Child” Chloe’s words burn through me as Jefferson hungrily takes more pictures of her. Now she’s kissing Warren, what the hell? Next she’s making a move on Victoria, then Nathan? Everyone but me. Am I…that easily replaced?

Everything goes dark again. I never get used to it. Chloe’s voice echoes through an endless void.  
“You’re the storm, Max. You never should have come back. You’re the storm Max, you never should have come back…” No, I never should have. I just want this to stop. Is this Hell? Is this because I meddled in peoples lives?

A blinding light sears my retinas and I wake up on the floor of the Two Whales diner. My body aches and roars at me. The diner is packed full of people. Some look at me angrily, some practically sobbing. In my panic I don’t realize that everyone is actually perfectly still. Frozen in time, or in my head?

“Don’t let me die Max.” an unfamiliar voice seeps into my ear. Who said that?

“I always considered you my second Daughter, Max…” Oh god, is Joyce stuck in here too? Am I crazy? Please, why can’t this make sense!

“You almost let me die Max, now you’re going to finish the job!” Kate’s voice echoes from another end of the restaurant. I see her sitting motionless in one of the booths, but I dare not touch her.

A friendlier Frank the drug dealer and his dog look longingly at me. Frank apologizes, but why? A few random voices plead for their lives. Even Victoria the bully apologizes and pleads that she doesn’t deserve to die like this.

“I don’t deserve to die like this!” I whimper, but nothing responds. Except for the slight movement in a far booth. A horrible pang of new terror shoots up my spine. I walk closer. 

A smirked face looks at me and blinks. This one moves, but it’s…it’s me. The clothes are different, but it’s me from a few days ago.

“Who…Who are you?” I sputter weakly.

“Holy shit, are you fucking cereal? I’m you, dumbass…or should I say I’m one of the Max’s you left behind!” the mirror Max seethes back at me. I gasp but she just sneers.

“Can you get me out of here?” I plead, my eyes wet and mouth dry. She keep’s sneering, but puts our old polaroid down and raises her arms behind her head. 

“Oh, so you want help? Thought you could control everyone and everything?” there’s less hate in her voice, but so much contempt. “You thought you could just twist time around your fingers, when you can barely get your own shit together”.

I cross my arms, trying to be defiant but I just don’t have the energy. I say nothing.

“You thought you could finally be cool, finally say the right thing and maybe, just maybe not feel so alone?” my replica spits at me. 

“No, I tried to…I wanted to help people” I weakly argue, but she can see right through me. She is me after all. She stands up as a tear finally rolls down my left cheek. I sniffle.

“Hey, hey…I get it. Why should it be so easy for everyone else? I know you tried, but why should I…should we keep putting out lives on the line?” she pulls down her sleeve and wipes away my tear. I look up at her and she’s looking right at me. I meet her soft gaze, this is so bizarre but I’ve spent the last week rewinding time until it unspooled like a worn out VHS tape, so my brain is done being surprised. 

“How much death have you seen? You’ve put your life and so many others on the line for what you thought was the greater good. Everyone else threw caution to the wind for their own selfish desires. Jefferson wanted some stupid pictures, Chloe and Frank wanted money and some object of their puppy love, Warren kept crushing on us despite how visibly uncomfortable it made us. Face it, Max, we are a shepherd in a selfish flock…” Mirror Max looks concerned now. Her fingertips wrap around my neck in an attempt to comfort me.

“That’s not true! I love Chloe, and Kate was a victim. Just because Warren is a little dense doesn’t mean he deserves to die in a storm, and I helped catch Jefferson!” I spit the words back out at my doppelganger.

“You don’t love Chloe, you love the idea of her. Of an old friend finally forgiving you. What kind of friend constantly guilt trips you for something that happened when you were thirteen? That wasn’t in your control? Like you wanted to move away. It’s not up to you to save everybody, especially when they so obviously don’t want to save themselves!” she cries a little now too. I try to stay angry, but I’m so tired. Part of me wants to believe her, that this is not all my fault. 

“Do you think Chloe could ever love you back? She’s barely back in your life for a minute and now your life is full of guns, death, drugs and pain! If she could trade, she would take Rachel over you in an instant. Rachel was her angel, and you’re just her devil” Doppleganger-Max buries her head in my neck, like she’s been struggling with this realization for far longer than I have.

“Chloe finds out you’re a shy virgin, so what does she do? She makes your first kiss a game, a schoolyard dare. Everything about us just amuses her. Our power is a tool for her means, she never once cares about our safety as we rush into a junkyard at night or into a dance with drink drugging lunatics!” She looks up at me again.

All I can do is sternly growl “That’s…that’s not true! She believes in us.” 

“Yeah... It’s true we’ve never believed in us. How much of our life has been road blocks we make ourselves? Guilt and denial over and over again. We can believe in ourselves though, look how far we’ve come in just a few days! We can be better, and we can forgive ourselves.”

A small kiss darts from her lips onto my neck. I finally feel some warmth for the first time in this hell. I say nothing.  
“Chloe will never forgive us. For leaving, for not saving Rachel, for not saving William. She doesn’t understand you. She never will. All she has is rage. Unfocused rage ready to be vomited on those around her. Don’t let us be that.”

“That’s disgusting!” is all I can muster to say.

“Maybe. You know I’m right though. No one here would understand you either.” Her eyes slowly take in all the Arcadia bay residents frozen in time around us. Her hand caresses my stomach as she kisses my neck again. 

“Would Kate forgive you if she knew how you sometimes glance down at her legs when she stands up, hoping to see just a little more under that skirt? Would Victoria ever stop laughing if she knew how many times you stole glances at her underwear in that one class when it snuck out just a little over top her jeans? Would Chloe understand how close you were to ‘accidently’ grazing her ass in the pool that one night?” How did she know all that?

“That’s all lies!” I blush, my body betraying me.

“You don’t have to be shy or afraid around me. You’re not a bad person. Just afraid, unable and unsure how to get the things you need. You have a right to be afraid.” I look up into her eyes as she speaks softly now, almost a whisper. My own face is so close to me, like a twisted mirror that’s been my only comfort in days now.

The other Max brings her lips softly to mine. It’s tender and sweet. She opens her mouth a little just to feel the intoxicating movement of lips in motion. Just like I…I guess I should say we have fantasized about for so long. She looks up at me with large vulnerable eyes.

“See? That’s how a first kiss should be. Not some dare from Chloe in her smelly bedroom, and not something the other person recoils from when you’ve called their bluff.” I close my eyes as I take long, heavy breathes. Her fingers dance across my stomach and under my shirt. Who knew my own fingers could feel so good on my skin. No, I can’t think like this! She’s just a horrible figment of doubt and anguish, like the rest of this purgatory.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” is all I can respond with. 

“I want US to be happy. You’ve given up so much of yourself for what you think is the right thing, but no one else believes in. You know that when this is all over you’re going to have to make a horrible sacrifice. Why should all that pain be on us? Who would suffer for us?”

“Chloe would!” 

“Are you sure? Just humor the possibility that she wouldn’t. If you make out of this together, what then? What about when she doesn’t need you anymore? When you’re just another easy target for her to shit her rage on? Are you sure you’re not just thinking of this?!” Doppelganger Max whispers into my ear.

Her hand has found its way down the front of my jeans. I breathe sharply, this is so wrong. I try to fight it, but it’s true. She’s me, and she knows exactly how I like to be touched. I have to brace myself on the diner table. She kisses my earlobe and tells me it’s ok. No matter what I do, she understands. No second guessing, no condemnation. Her movements on my most sensitive areas are familiar but so new. No shame or fear. 

“I love you Max.” She says, and it sounds ridiculous. “I know we’re hard on ourselves, but for once let’s not let others take advantage of us” I wince in pleasure, my knees almost buckling. “We deserve better than the scraps of affection that other people have for us.” 

I finally break and kiss her…kiss myself deeply. The other Max positions us on the diner table, so I’m sitting facing out. I grab her and hold her close. Finally, some genuine comfort after these horrible events took hold of us. She stands in front of me, hand still perfectly inside my panties. Somehow I feel perfectly reassured despite the madness of everything around me. I’m desperate for relief. She presses her forehead against mine as I breathe sharply. It feels astonishing. My clone brings me to orgasm and I wrap my arms around her head as she whispers that everything is going to be all right. 

“Stay here with me. We don’t ever have to go back.” The other Max lifts my face and looks me right in the eye. “Let everyone else deal with the shit they caused for themselves. We’re safe here, and we don’t ever have to be alone again!”. I want to believe her. I want to believe me. 

“No.” I shake my head.   
“What?!” is all she can say as I look back at my own heartbroken face.  
“This isn’t real. Even if it was, if it could be real I would only end up hating myself.” I try to reassure her.  
“We already hate ourselves!” she cries.

“Not always, and that’s our problem and no one else’s. We may not have started this whole mess but we’re involved and we have to see it through. If there’s even a chance I can be with Chloe, even if it’s wrong or unhealthy, I have to know how it ends.”

The other Max whimpers “It will destroy us, she will destroy us!”

“Maybe…probably. We’re already down that road though, there’s no turning back. We’re not that powerful.” I try to smile. “We’ve always played it safe, and you know how alone that leaves us…”

I can see her trying not to agree as she hides her head in her arms on the diner table.   
“I have to try…” but she doesn’t look up.

“What do you mean you have to try? Max! Wake up!” Suddenly I’m in pouring rain near a lighthouse and I hear Chloe’s voice as wind and sleet booms around me. I’m out of that hellish nightmare! Chloe’s eyes meet mine and I see an overwhelming concern in her eyes. For once I don’t see the smoldering fire of pointless rage. Maybe that version of me is right, and this blue haired hurricane will hollow me out and leave me a miserable husk. Right now though, this is all worth it. Maybe she can help me do the right thing. Just maybe.


End file.
